Originating Author: Fred Moore
Moving the major storage management functions off the server and into the storage fabric to simplify the storage management task is one of the major but not new architectural directions for the storage industry. The major switch, director and storage subsystem companies have now launched intelligent switch initiatives. Storage subsystem suppliers are also adding storage management intelligence into their offerings. Server-less or outboard storage management functions will gradually evolve beyond backup and recovery techniques to include mirroring, journaling, snapshot copy, point-in-time copies, de-duplication and a variety of storage virtualization functions. Though the net value is high, deployment of intelligent switches is slower than expected as existing operational processes must be redesigned.
Where should the intelligence go?
It would seem that the closer the intelligence is to the storage controller the closer to the data the better the control. This has implications for recoverability, virtualization and storage management. In the storage controller I say. -twostardav
